chronicles of a classical hipster

There is something utterly fascinating and intriguing about the past, and in particular for me when it comes to ancient times.

It’s mostly fascination over what exactly the world would have looked like; both man made and Mother Nature herself going back thousands of years ago. How the people of those days actually lived life and what they dreamt about or hoped for. Did they too yearn for sea change, feel contempt over barbarian slayings or were they simply content with being home bodies protected and ruled by dictators and kings. And then there is the architecture and structures and just how exactly it stood against a backdrop of a wild and untamed land. How these buildings that took blood, sweat and tears from its people actually looked and felt to touch. Historians and archeologists always seem to depict works of impossible grandeur so imagine what it would have been like to physically behold such structures both in stages of construction and completion. No longer as the ruins of today but once again erected in all their glory before man took to frivolously destroying them.

And of course the humble homes of both nobleman and commoners, how exactly were their homes used and styled? It was a time were the edge of the encroaching forrest or the shoreline of the sea could have been considered to literally be the ends of the earth for them. I mean was survival really their priority? Did they have the same thought processes as we do, the same pressures in society with body image and conformity? Could narcissism have run as rampant as it does today? The ancient Romans living in Pompei were known to graffiti public walls with their names and sometimes even depicting what they had or were currently up to. The first form of social media perhaps? Funnily enough its important to note that this is a habit of ours still to this day, even if we have moved from cubical doors and walls to Facebook and Twitter.

This amazing photographic series by Leo Caillard of a classical hipster makes that lost world seem so much more unrestricted to us. Those incredible works of art you encounter in museums of larger than life humans and Gods, of people that once walked on the same earth as ours, have always felt so alien to me. But now, dressed to impress, mimicking that of a classical hipster, they actually feel like possible distant relatives. The clever incorporation of some classical hipster modern day threads gently ease their imposing steadfast stances to something less commanding, vulnerable and dare I say, human even. And then there is their poses itself, which I know at some point or another I’ve come across one or two of these fine carvings and wondered about their ambitious choice of artificial positions. I mean who truly stands around in such an unnatural way? And yet when you dress them up in ‘hipster’ ensembles and accoutrements, these once perceived unnatural mannerisms become ordinary. Normal even. These guys could now simply be someone you pass on the street. Even be seated adjacent to on the bus, or they could even be hanging at your local cafe, waiting in line to be served, just like to rest of us.

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